Книга: Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage, Security, & Networking Pocket Consultant

Performing server backups

As part of your planning for each server you intend to back up, you should consider which volumes you want to back up and whether backups will include system-state recovery data, application data, or both. Although you can manually back up to shared volumes and DVD media, you need a separate, dedicated hard disk for running scheduled backups. After you configure a disk for scheduled backups, the backup utilities automatically manage the disk usage and automatically reuse the space of older backups when creating new backups. After you schedule backups, you need to check periodically to ensure that backups are being performed as expected and that the backup schedule meets current needs.

When you create or schedule backups, you need to specify the volumes you want to include, and this affects the ways you can recover your servers and your data. You have the following options:

? Full server (all volumes with application data) Back up all volumes with application data if you want to be able to fully recover a server, along with its system state and application data. Because you are backing up all files, the system state, and application data, you should be able to fully restore your server by using only the Windows backup tools.

? Full server (all volumes without application data) Back up all volumes without application data if you want to be able to restore a server and its applications separately. With this technique, you back up the server by using the Windows backup tools but exclude locations where applications and application data are stored. Then you back up applications and related data by using third-party tools or tools built into the applications. You can fully recover a server by using the Windows backup utilities, and then use a thirdparty utility to restore backups of applications and application data.

? Critical volumes/bare metal recovery Back up only critical volumes if you want to be able to recover only the operating system.

? Noncritical volumes Back up only individual volumes if you want to be able to recover only files, applications, or data from those volumes.

As part of the backup process, you also need to specify a storage location for backups. Keep the following in mind when you choose storage locations:

? When you use an internal hard disk for storing backups, you are limited in how you can recover your system. You can recover the data from a volume, but you cannot rebuild the entire disk structure.

? When you use an external hard disk for storing backups, the disk will be dedicated for storing your backups and will not be visible in File Explorer. Choosing this option will format the selected disk or disks, removing any existing data.

? When you use a remote shared folder for storing backups, your backup will be overwritten each time you create a new backup. Do not choose this option if you want to store multiple backups for each server.

? When you use removable media or DVDs for storing backups, you can recover only entire volumes, not applications or individual files. The media you use must be at least 1 GB in size.

The sections that follow discuss techniques for performing backups. The procedures you use to back up servers with Windows Server Backup and Wbadmin are similar.

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